Defense keeps Spartans in contention

Cancer awareness event Wednesday

The Southwestern men made up a 22-18 halftime deficit with a key second-half spurt to defeat visiting Clinton Community College Saturday, 50-41.

“We just never clicked offensively, but in the last three minutes we got some shots to fall,” said SWCC coach Mike Holmes. “We made some defensive plays and got some transition stuff. We got back-to-back old-fashioned three-point plays to give us a margin there in the last three minutes.”

“They were running a 2-3 zone and we got careless with some passing in the first half,” Holmes said. “But we found some seams in the second half, and Jack got some putback stuff.”

Clinton falls to 1-9 in the ICCAC Division II race and 6-16 overall. Southwestern, 12-11 overall, sits in a third-place tie at 5-4 with Kirkwood and would like to hold that with a win over DMACC here Wednesday.

DMACC comes in at 14-11 overall, and a perplexing 3-6 record in league play, according to Holmes.

“They’ve struggled for some reason this year,” Holmes said. “They have good athletes. They just beat Iowa Lakes. We don’t know why they haven’t been more successful in the league. We had them on the ropes the first time, we just need to finish. It should be a good atmosphere.”

Wednesday is the Greater Regional Cancer Awareness night in the Spartan gym, with pink T-shirt sales and a gift basket raffle.